CHAPTER SEVEN

Blake Norton and I met during our freshman year at Ferncroft College, a small liberal arts school in the rolling hills of central Kentucky with about two thousand students, thirty minutes away from Rossingville. We first got to know each other when we joined the same social club during the fall of our freshman year.

These social clubs weren’t really fraternities. Ferncroft didn’t allow the Greek system on its beautiful, stately Gothic Revival campus. The college took itself too seriously for that. They wanted to be like Harvard and Princeton. They wanted to be considered the “Ivy of the South.”

So, going all the way back to the school’s founding in the nineteenth century, students, both men and women, joined social clubs. Ostensibly, they were philanthropic organizations in which students raised money for worthy causes, volunteering their time on weekends and evenings at soup kitchens and blood drives and tutoring programs.

But the social club members engaged in all the things someone might associate with a fraternity or sorority. We drank. We held parties. We carried out elaborate pranks.

Our club was called the Sigil and Shield and, like all of the clubs at Ferncroft, it was coed. Had been since the nineteen sixties. And, during our time at Ferncroft and largely due to Blake’s influence, we became known as one of the hardest-partying clubs on campus.

We threw large blowouts for every occasion—Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, Easter, fall break, you name it. If someone farted or went to the bathroom, we threw a party. Everyone drank at these events. Everyone danced and yelled and let loose.

Sigil and Shield also made a big deal out of being exclusive. We admitted only the right kind of student, someone we all believed would fit in with the rest of us. Someone with the right degree of coolness, intellect, and ironic detachment. To that end, we made anyone wishing to join go through a rigorous series of tests.

In other words, we hazed.

We didn’t call it that, of course. Especially not after one of our rival clubs, the Kings and Queens, was disbanded by the university during our sophomore year when one of their pledges was rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

So we told our pledges we had to “interview” them.

We all knew what that meant. The pledges knew. The members knew. Even the administration knew. And they were willing to turn a blind eye as long as the tuition dollars rolled in and the enrollment stayed up. As long as the alums who went on to successful careers opened their checkbooks and gave back to the school.

Blake and I were never ringleaders in the club. We never bothered to run for or hold important positions. We went along for the parties and the fun, but otherwise we flew below the radar.